Australia banished three decades of dashed hopes and cruel defeats to clinch their place in Germany thanks to Mark Schwarzer's shoot-out heroics and a team spirit galvanised by their part-time coach Guus Hiddink.

The Middlesbrough goalkeeper admitted taking great delight in beating Uruguay after the sides ended a feisty two-leg play-off locked at 1-1. The 33-year-old saved from Marcelo Zalayeta and Darío Rodríguez before John Aloisi tucked away Australia's fifth spot-kick to secure a 4-2 win on penalties before a crowd of 82,698 in Sydney.

The result went some way to avenging the defeat four years ago - and Australia's other play-off misses in 1985, 1993 and 1997 - after a hostile reception in Uruguay. Schwarzer said: "The Uruguayans have been playing games from when we arrived in Uruguay up to Sydney. Even before the game they were playing games in the tunnel so it was great to put one over on them because they put us under pressure and weren't playing very sporting-like."

Trailing 1-0 from the first leg in Montevideo, Australia levelled through the Parma midfielder Marco Bresciano 10 minutes before the interval after a sharp build-up involving Tim Cahill, Mark Viduka and Harry Kewell. The goal vindicated Hiddink's decision to bring on Kewell for Tony Popovic; the Crystal Palace centre-back had just been cautioned for elbowing Alvaro Recoba.

Hiddink, also in charge of PSV, now has the opportunity to enhance his World Cup pedigree after taking South Korea to the semi-finals in 2002.

"Now the focus will be going to the World Cup, and not making up the numbers but putting in some great performances and hopefully even progressing," Schwarzer added. "We want to achieve great things - we've got the team and manager to do it. Everyone is pulling in the right direction."

Uruguay's coach Jorge Fossati, who was without Diego López and Diego Forlán, said: "I feel great pain. I am at the lowest moment of my sporting life."

Hiddink praised his players for their work ethic after coming together at short notice to train for the play-off. "I had just four weeks to work with them," he said. "This is a great bunch of guys."

Lucas Neill, who scored the second of his team's penalties, said Australians would finally have a team of their own to support. "We're used to picking our favourite team in the World Cup," the Blackburn midfielder said, "and now it's going to be Australia."